The immediate objectives of this project are to develop versatile synthetic avenues to the antineoplastic antibiotic mitomycins, to determine the minimum structural features of the mitomycins which relate directly to their biological activity and to discover new general approaches to heterocyclic quinones (indolequinones) which may show biological activity analogous to the mitomycins. Three potentially very general synthetic routes to the mitomycin ring system are currently under investigation. In addition, work has been initiated on a project concerning the synthesis of what is anticipated to be a unique class of selective biological alkylating agents.